THE AMERICAN HORSE. 8Y 



Tince himself of this, by comparing tlie knees of hack-horses 

 let for hire, either in the cities or rural villages of the United 

 States, with those of similar English localities. In this coun- 

 try, a broken knee is one of the very rarest blemishes encoun- 

 tered in a horse ; while of horses let for hire in England, with 

 the exception of those let by a few crack livery-keepers in 

 London, in the Universities, and in one or two other of the 

 most important towns in hunting • neighborhoods, a majority 

 are decidedly broken-kneed. 



The exemption of the horse, on this side of the Atlantic, 

 from this fault, is ascribable : first, to the fact, that both the 

 pasture-lands and the roads here are far rougher, more broken 

 in surface, and more interrupted by stones, stumps, and other 

 obstacles, than in the longer cultivated and more finished coun- 

 tries of Europe, which teaches young horses to bend their 

 knees, and throw their legs more freely while playing with the 

 dams in the field ; and also to lift and set down their feet with 

 much greater caution even on our great thoroughfares ; 

 secondly, to the higher blood and breed of riding-horses in 

 England, which are often cantering thorough breds, liable to 

 be unsafe travelers on the road ; and lastly, to the well-known 

 circumstance, that most of the hired horses are roadsters — these 

 are worn-out or broken-down animals of a higher caste, which 

 are deemed, by reason of their disqualification for a higher 

 position, fit for a secondary one, although suited to none, and 

 dangerous in any. 



To this admirable quality of the American horse, must be 

 added his extreme good temper and docility, in which he un- 

 deniably excels any other horse in the world. From the first 

 childhood of the animal until he is fully put to work, he re- 



